East Harbor State Park

Site C-58

We spent this past weekend at East Harbor State Park in Ohio.  We were there for our annual Halloween camping trip and I'll make another post about that later.

East Harbor is on the shores of Lake Erie, about halfway between Toledo and Sandusky.  I went to high school not too far away from there.  My best friend lives in the Cleveland area.  This is a great meeting point because it's somewhere in the middle.

We've been to East Harbor several times before.  When searching for sites, I HIGHLY recommend paying attention to the sites that state, "This can be a wet site as it is prone to flooding after heavy rains."  That is no joke.  Our first time there?  Our reserved campsite was under several inches of water.  Thankfully it was super early in the camping season and we could easily select a drier campsite.  Still muddy, but not flooded.  When we were there for the 4th of July weekend in 2013, there was rain off and on all weekend.  We couldn't escape the mud and our feet were just filthy.

East Harbor is part of the reason I own rainboots now.

Wet and muck is really the negative side of East Harbor.  There are great things about it, too.  Things that outweigh the muck.

We made a three-night camping trip for this weekend.  We got there shortly before dark, enough time to unhitch and get set up.  Not enough time to do anything much besides that, eat dinner and put our school-tired kids to bed.  We are clearly on the downside of the equinox.

Friday morning, I went for a run first thing.  I was greeted by the sunrise over the bay.  Not a bad way to start the day.  I wound my way through different sections of the park.  We like electricity and we like our dog, so we always end up in Section C.  You can end up in different sections based on your pet and electricity choices.

Once I got back and cleaned up for the day, the kids wanted to ride their bikes over to the Glacial Grooves.  I've been to the Glacial Grooves on Kelleys Island, those are impressive to look at.  The ones at East Harbor State Park?  Not-so-much.  My oldest kid certainly thinks they're cool.  I think I might think more highly of them if I'd not seen the other ones.  A short bike ride later, we were at the grooves.

The sign explaining the history of the grooves.

I'd guess the length is about 1/2 a football field, so a longer distance shot.

A closer shot with the toe of my rain boot to give some size perspective.  You can definitely see the direction that the glacier moved however many years ago that happened.

We did not make a trip to go fishing on this trip, but we've done it from the pier and from a boat.  We've had good luck with catching.

The camp store is nice.  There was a 1/2 off sale on ice cream treats because it's October.  Somehow, the kids wanted ice cream on a 55 degree day.  The grown-ups opted to skip that particular treat ;)

The majority of our remaining time at East Harbor was spent participating in Halloween activities.  Look for that post to come.